Sharma Climbs V14, Makes GQ

Chris Sharma has made the third ascent of the Fred Nicole boulder problem Esperanza (V14) at Hueco Tanks and been named one of the “Amazing Bodies of the Year” by GQ magazine. OK, the two stories aren’t related, but Sharma is shown bouldering on the opening page of the “Amazing Bodies” feature, part of GQ’s “Men of the Year” issue. Posing Sharma at the top of an artificial wall in a sort of kung fu-World-Cup-victory-wave, with a Joaquin Phoenix sneer on his lips, GQ managed to capture the normally photogenic Sharma in the dorkiest climbing photo ever taken. Coming off much better in the same feature was Nawang Sherpa, who summited Mount Everest last spring with a protheseis in place of the left he lost in a bus accident in Kathmandu. Dubbed the “Bionic Mountaineer” by GQ, the 33-year-old Sherpa mountaineer looks mighty studly in the Everest photos, despite the fact that he hardly trained for the climb, out of fear of breaking his titanium and carbon-fiber prothesis.